Thomas Widdershoven - Sense Nonsense lecture

Thonik is a design studio founded by Thomas Widdershoven and Nikki Gonnissen in 1993. With fifteen employees the design studio collaborates with clients and creatives in design, e-culture, architecture, art, film and advertising. Recent clients include Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Dutch broadcasting company VPRO. The work of Thonik gets much recognition. Thonik has had solo exhibitions at the Shanghai Art Museum, the Venice Architecture Biennale 2008, MOTI Breda, Spiral Art Center Tokyo, Sfera Kyoto, Institute Néerlandais Paris and Galerie Anatome Paris. The design studio has monographs published in English, Chinese and Japanese. Thonik has won many awards, including the Rotterdam Design Prize and the Gouden Loeki, an award for the best Dutch television commercial.

Education is a passion of Thomas Widdershoven. Almost immediately after graduating as a designer at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, he became a teacher of graphic design at the Hogeschool van de Kunst Arnhem (1995-2000). He later left that position for a lectureship at the Rietveld Academy where he taught at the designLAB (3d design, 2001-2005). Thomas gives workshops and lectures in the Netherlands and abroad, he has been the creative director of Design Academy Eindhoven between 2013-2016.

'Sense Nonsense' is the title of an exhibition initiated by Thomas Widdershoven at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. It reflects an ongoing research into the value and relevance of an artistic design approach. Sense Nonsense argues that there is no rational path to innovation. We should embrace speculation, fiction, art, serious hobbies and improvised survival strategies to achieve the seemingly impossible, to have an impact on the world and to motivate real-world change.